


Sacrificial Lamb

by Joel7th



Category: Blood of Zeus (Cartoon), Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: Set in an alternate universe. Hector was offered to Seraphim by his people to appease the daemon king.
Relationships: Hector (Castlevania)/Seraphim (Blood of Zeus)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Sacrificial Lamb

The man reeked of fear. Seraphim could smell it clearly in the condensed air of the tent.

It was a humid day, the sky overcast and heavy-looking clouds gathering to blotch out the sun and beg for a rain, so naturally, everyone was a little sweatier, daemons not an exception. However, it was not stale sweat that was semi-suffocating Seraphim’s enhanced sense but fear, which the daemon king had grown accustomed to whenever a mortal was in his presence. It was hard to ignore it as the man in front of him was _this_ close to soiling his expensive toga.

Weak.

“These are the most eye-pleasing youths in our polis,” the man said, rubbing his clammy hands together. Seraphim could practically saw the tremor in those meaty, jeweled fingers. “On behalf of our polis, we are offering them to you, o mighty daemon king, to use them as you please in exchange for our freedom. Please take them and spare the rest of us.”

Not so different from sacrifices made at the altar to appease the gods, huh? Seraphim loathed it to his core.

“Are they slaves?” Seraphim asked, his gaze sweeping over a dozen or so men and women bound and forced on their knees before landing on a silver head amongst various shades of ebony. Strange. Why was there an old man in the lot when the man had said these were the best-looking they could give?

“Some of them are, yes,” the man replied, a quiver in his voice. “The rest... won’t be missed.”

Seraphim humphed, crossing over to the silver-haired man, his curiosity piqued. “Up,” he ordered, looming over the kneeling figure and lifting the man’s face with the tip of his Bident.

The daemon king expected a gray wrinkled face to match the color of his strands; what he was seeing with growing interest was a youthful countenance with healthy olive skin and a pair of miniature oceans for eyes. Eyes that were staring defiantly at him.

Interesting. Seraphim grinned, giving the young man — he was young, probably not over twenty — a free show of sharp fangs. His eyes widened yet betrayed no fear and that was all the reaction Seraphim could extract from him.

“What’s your name?”

The youth’s throat moved but he made no sound, his lips pressed into a straight, determined line.

“His name is Hector,” the wealthy man answered instead. “He’s just an orph—”

His sentence was cut short with a choked sound. His beady eyes bulged out of their sockets when he saw the shaft of the Bident protruding from his abdomen.

“I didn’t ask you,” Seraphim deadpanned, withdrawing his weapon. The man collapsed, spilling his innards before grinding them into the ground with his heavy weight. Retching noises bounced off the walls of the tent.

Seraphim looked down at the youth and was pleasantly surprised to find him still as a statue. He spared but a brief glance at the corpse before going back to staring at the daemon like he had just witnessed a mosquito being squashed instead of a man being gutted.

“Your people have betrayed you,” Seraphim said, addressing the small crowd. “You have two choices: become one of us or die like him. Choose wisely.”

Not wasting a moment to wait for their response, he turned to his subordinates. “Take them out.”

As the mortals filed out of the tent, flanked on both sides by daemons, the youth made to stand up, only to be stopped by Seraphim before he could rise to his full height. “You stay,” Seraphim said.

The youth glared at him and refused to kneel down, opting to remain in that awkward posture instead.

The daemon raised his Bident and pressed its dripping edge against the side of his neck. He grinned, allowing his weapon to bite into tanned flesh, relishing a rivulet of red slithering down the elegant column of his neck and pooling at the dip between his clavicles. “I didn’t say you could stand.”

His jaws moved and Seraphim could hear him grind his teeth in a physical attempt to restrain himself from a comeback. Instead of fear, his current look was one of rage. That was good. Seraphim preferred rage to fear. Rage kept a man alive, even though it was quite debatable in this case. The youth’s survival rested entirely on how far he was able to hold the daemon’s interest, and so far he hadn’t been doing a terrible job simply by kneeling.

“Unless you preferred to be called ‘boy’—”

“Hector,” the youth cut him.

“So you’re not dumb,” Seraphim said, unvexed. “That does make it easier to commune.”

“I didn’t know you were up for a conversation.”

Seraphim caught his chin. Very smooth. Apparently a well-groomed man. 

“Quite a tongue you have. You may regret losing it.”

Hector tried to jerk his chin away but the daemon’s grip was vice-like. He gave up after a couple tries. “What do you want with me?”

“To give you the same choice as the others: convert or die.”

Hector turned his head to the entrance flaps. “Then why am I not outside with them?”

“I want to see which choice you will make. To see you transform with my own eyes or to take your head myself.”

Hector scoffed. “To get such special treatment, it seems my luck hasn’t run out today.”

“Still not enough to save you from the fate of being sold by your own people.”

“They weren’t my people. Honestly, I’m surprised they haven’t stoned me to death already.”

Seraphim stepped back and subtly gave Hector his permission to rise. “All the more reason to convert.”

“No,” Hector refused with such sureness it took the daemon by surprise. “I have neither loyalty nor love for those people but I will not become a daemon and renounce my god.”

“A devoted worshipper, aren’t you?” Seraphim taunted, pointing his Bident at Hector. All it required was a mere thought and he would be short of a head. “Which Olympian had descended to rescue you when you were dragged to us? Which Olympian would heed your prayer and intervene if I were to behead you now?”

“None.”

Soon as the word was spat out like venom, something akin to blue flame flared up from his clenched fists, incinerating his bondage in a blink. Seraphim jumped back, his Bident vibrating with alarm.

The youth grabbed the eviscerated corpse’s ankle and the contagious flame from his hands instantly engulfed the body, turning it into a small funeral pyre the dead man would not likely get. As the sapphire flame was blazing, the body started morphing. The skeletal frame grew with astounding speed; the skull elongated and its features broke to re-form grotesque shapes; the mouth split, enlarged and was filled with teeth, bigger and sharper than any beast’s Seraphim knew of; the skin melted off muscles, replaced by scales as long talons sprouted from the corpse’s hands and feet, no longer human in their shape or size.

The taloned hand was around Seraphim’s throat a heartbeat later, plucking the daemon off the ground as though he was a straw doll. The Bident slipped from his hand and soundlessly embedded itself into the soil.

Seraphim was by no means small, and yet he felt insignificant being suspended midair by an arm almost doubling him in size and was covered in scales that rendered his claws useless and his struggle to free himself a kitten’s scratches.

Eyes burning with the same color and intensity as the flame that had brought forth its transformation stared soullessly at Seraphim while smoke came out from flared nostrils. Strings of saliva dangled at the edge of the cavernous mouth, adorned by stalagmite-like teeth.

Were his throat free, Seraphim would be laughing. The thing could have crushed him by now; instead, all it did was restrain him and snarl, awaiting its summoner’s order.

Weak.

“Let me leave and I’ll let you live,” Hector said, meeting Seraphim’s gaze straight on. The mystic blue flame on his hands had been extinguished, yet there was a strange light on his eyes that had not been there before.

Seraphim’s lips quirked. His Bident uprooted itself from the ground and shot up like an arrow. Its destination wasn’t his hand however, nor was it Hector’s torso — the fun would end if he killed him now, wouldn’t it? — but the back of the reptilian creature’s skull, where it immediately drilled a clean hole through hard scales and flesh and bones. Shock paled Hector’s face, which all the gore failed to dab some color on.

The Bident flew to his outstretched palm, a loyal hound to its master’s beckon. Seraphim swung his arm and lopped off the hand that had gone lax with the monster’s demise. He landed on his feet, his weapon held high. Hector was not short of height, quite the opposite actually, yet he was easily dwarfed by the daemon’s enhanced form, which invoked the scene of a mortal in front of a god.

“You could have killed me and walked out of here,” Seraphim said. “But you didn’t because your creature could not have defeated all my people outside.”

“True,” Hector agreed, lowering his gaze. “Still, given enough time and enough corpses—”

“You could create an army. I am impressed, and I’m not easily impressed. I have heard of magicians, even run into a few, yet this sort of magic—”

“—is not of this world. It comes from the Underworld, whose king is the only deity I worship, not any Olympian.”

King of the Underworld? That could only be...

“So your powers are his blessing.”

“So is your weapon. It radiates such tremendous energy.”

Shock flashed across Seraphim’s face but he was quick to snub it. A thread of cold dread coiled around his insides like a slimy snake. There were few things for the daemon to put his trust in, one of which was this mystical weapon he had always believed meant for him to discover and had since become an integral part of his core strength, an extension of his limbs. To learn of its origin unlocked a whole new perspective and a sense of foreboding. Would he be able to wield it with confidence now that his mind was plagued with a constant paranoia that his every move was being orchestrated by an arrogant god?

For the first time since he got Hector alone in this tent, anger blazed in Seraphim’s heart. “If I were to kill you,” he said darkly, the edge of the Bident licking the youth’s skin beneath which laid his carotid — just a fraction of his strength and his blood would spurt, “tear you limb from limb, would he save you?”

He did not expect Hector’s grimace to put a damper on his rage at once.

Pain became him it seemed.

“I would be a subject in his kingdom.”

“You are not afraid of death?”

Incredulous.

“I am, but I would be dead by now if you had wanted so.”

Seraphim smirked, catching Hector’s jaws in with care so as not to damage the tender skin of his face. Pain suited him, scars did not. “I do find you more useful alive than dead.”

Hector grabbed Seraphim’s wrist and yanked it away. Another vain attempt; when would he learn of his inferiority in raw strength?

“I won’t create monsters to serve you or anyone if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Not even to serve your own end? Not when you were herded like cattle to us?”

“I just wanted to live in peace.”

“Peace is for the weak. Here we cull the weak.”

Hector scoffed. “So is harboring a threat in your rank. You should kill me before the weakness spreads and turns your horde against you.”

“I would like to see you try. See if you can turn my people quicker than I shove a Giant’s flesh down your throat.”

Seraphim leaned in, his face closer to Hector’s than it should be for the youth to feel comfortable. Mortal heartbeats thumped on his eardrums as his nose took in his scent. A mix of sweat and dirt, with a grassy hint. No fear. Was this mortal truly fearless or a master of lie and pretense? Seraphim’s eyes bored into his face, seeking to unveil the hidden truth. In front of his infernal orbs, truth tended to spill; the daemon knew and intended to take full advantage of it.

“How is it threatening to kill a defenseless man a sign of strength?”

Seraphim’s laugher was low as he jerked his thumb towards the slain monster’s carcass. “I wouldn’t call that monstrous creature ‘defenseless’.”

“There’s not a corpse in sight, and my hands are empty.”

“Who can tell whatever trick you still have up your proverbial sleeve?”

“There is none.”

Seraphim took hold of Hector’s wrist — more slender than he had been used to — and squeezed with just enough force for the budding of pain. “There’s a body right here,” he said. A morbid part of him, one that incessantly craved danger and destruction, conjured the image of sapphire flame outlining supple skin, breathtaking in its lethality, and how it would feel licking his own skin, his nerves, transfiguring his shape. Would that be similar to consuming the Giant’s flesh and going through the excruciating process of being consumed from the inside out?

No flame was ignited; the tanned, calloused hand remained docile in his grip. The youth looked at him like he had gone insane to suggest such a thing. He knew nothing yet.

“I can’t make a catalyst out of a living body,” Hector replied, “much less a living _daemon_ ’s body.”

“Have you tried?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

Hector bit his lips and kept his mouth shut. Something flitted across his features, too fast to decipher.

A distinct coppery whiff wafted before Seraphim’s nose, poking his primal sense. A sudden, exploding urge overwhelmed his brain, dying his vision a boiling red. He acted on it, allowing his instincts to take full rein of his body like the babe he had once been when his mouth was placed next to a mother bear’s teat. The taste of Hector’s blood, salty and sweet, bloomed on his tongue. He wanted more.

Seraphim had no idea what he had done until he felt a bony knee in his abdomen. He growled, baring his fangs. His hand seized Hector’s throat and his eyes drank in the distorted features of the youth struggling beneath him. His silver hair fanned out around his head, making a stark contrast with the soil. Sweats gathered in beads on his forehead and his lips, glistening with traces of blood and saliva, were parted as his chest heaved heavily. His skin, separated with Seraphim’s only by a thin layer of fabric, was feverish. The daemon relished in the heat.

It would be so easy to take Hector right here, to ravage his mortal flesh until his fearless spirit shattered and he broke, inside and out, reduced to a begging mess. After all, wasn’t his intended purpose a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered despite his god-blessed command over monsters from the Underworld? The idea was tempting enough to make his blood race in his veins. He made sure Hector feel its effect and was pleased when the youth froze, eyes wide in disbelief. Hadn’t expected this turn of event, had he? How could he be so naive and survive the world?

“I could take you,” Seraphim whispered into the shell of Hector’s ear, caging his head between his arms, “whenever I want, however I want, and toss you to the wolves and vultures once I am done. Or I could spare you and keep you as a reminder of a constant threat. Is that enough for a sign of strength?”

“A sign of strength would be to get off me and let me go,” Hector relied, pants lacing his short sentence.

Seraphim obliged him. He stood up, offering a hand to Hector and watching with clear amusement the youth swat it away and get to his feet unaided. He glared at the daemon throughout the short process as if his intense look alone could summon Zeus’s thunder to smite him.

“I’m going to let you go,” Seraphim said. “Back to the people that sold you with nary a thought, with your coarse fabric adorned by the blood and guts of a noble. You will be back to me soon enough.”

Hector cast a long glance at Seraphim before making his way out, not once turning his head back.

...

Seraphim lowered his Chimera to the ground, swinging his arm to get rid of the fresh blood that clung to the twin blades of his Bident. He looked down at the tousled silver head, doing a brief inspection of his current state. There were several blotches of dirt and blood that caked on sun-dried strands. He hoped it wasn’t a severe head injury or something equally terrible; he didn’t come all the way here to retrieve a corpse.

The youth looked half-dead already, held up by ropes and the stake to which he was tied. A couple crows circled above his head, waiting patiently for his faint breathing and subdued heartbeats to cease so they could start their feast. Seraphim chased them away.

The daemon king hopped off his mount and made quick work of Hector’s bondage. The youth’s body slumped against his form, reeking of stale sweat and blood and festered tissues. Seraphim frowned. At the juncture between his neck and shoulder was a burnt mark which definitely hadn’t been there when he was given to him.

“I said you would come back to me, didn’t I?” he said, tilting Hector’s face from side to side. His eyes were bloodshot and dull, having lost their fighting light. He visibly struggled to keep them open.

Hector made no reply when Seraphim hefted him onto the Chimera, waving his hand to give his horde the permission to descend upon the unsuspecting polis.

_End_


End file.
